How Do I Quality For Hyde Park (Sprint) Triathlon 2013 – ITU World Championships? Don't bother?

What is the best way to qualify for the ITU world champs at Hyde Park in 2013?

Firstly demand is going to be VERY high. For once we won’t have to pay lots of money to travel overseas. That in itself will attract some of the tighter of the BTF members amongst us.

There might be a few extra places available but that wont detract from the fact that to be guaranteed qualification you are going to have to be doing 105% of the winner’s time.

Maybe 110% will get you in in several age groups but the minimum 115% will not be enough.

So that’s going to be a sub 18 minute 5k in many age groups and of course a similar standard in the swim and bike. I don’t even think you will get away with being good at two disciplines; there will jsut be so many people that come out of the woodwork. You only have to look at the ETU/ITU past events to see that there are the usual suspects but also MANY others who do awesome performances but don’t come back year after year for cost or family reasons or whatever.

So you need to figure out which event will have the lowest winning time in your age group…not so easy!

With only 3 qualifier events most good people will want to guarantee qualification ASAP. So that they can get back to training or so that they don’t have to worry about an injury prior to the last qualifier.

Then again for those that think this might be true (and there will be lots of you) then that means you will all do the last one and hope for the best.

There are also geographical considerations too. The more northerly the event the more likely that those nearer to it will go to it.

Then of course look at the national champs. That is BOUND to attract the best people and the highest qualification time. Or is it? Others might realise this and deliberately avoid it or might not bother about the national champs instead wanting ITU qualification and international glory rather than domestic honours.

So looking a the sprint events:

Bristol – don’t bother all the best people will get qualification in this to guarantee their place. The less good will go to ‘bag’ a time here and also for the next two as well. A great warm up race for …

Nottingham – National Champs – don’t bother as the best people will be going for national glory. Still haven’t qualified yet? Well have another go in…

North Wales – don’t bother huge amounts of competition in the lower orders and the whole of Northern England and Scotland will use this as their only qualifier. Lots of people here who will not have got automatic qualification and want to be sure. You will be competing against the best of their 2 or 3 attempts to qualify. Also the bike is a bit challenging here so you need to be good at that to stand a chance ie >>4w/kg on a CP20.

Summary: You’re not good enough as you are reading this. Don’t bother.